Stop the presses: Nearly 80 percent of Reddit users get their daily dose of news on the site. The demise of print media has enticed more people—mostly young, liberal males—to the "front page of the Internet," according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

Of the 7 percent of U.S. adults who report surfing Reddit, 78 percent use it to find the latest news, often of the political persuasion. In the throes of the 2016 presidential campaign, is it any surprise that 45 percent of Redditors turn to the site for updates on candidates?

Researchers examined campaign discussion on Reddit in May, June, and September 2015. It found that candidate chatter has largely been about Bernie Sanders.

"In the months before the early presidential debates last fall, Sen. Bernie Sanders was mentioned in more comments (about 165,000) than Hillary Clinton (85,000) and Donald Trump (73,000) combined," Pew found. "The Sanders phenomenon recalls previous presidential candidates who, while not leading in the polls, saw outsized levels of conversation or support in pockets of the internet, including Ron Paul on Twitter, and Howard Dean with Meetup.com and the early blogosphere."

When Redditors do veer away from the site for news, they look to news websites or apps, late-night comedy shows, and the emails or websites of issue-based groups. They are less interested in nightly network news, cable or local TV news, or the print edition of a local daily newspaper.

According to Pew, that number is on par with the portion of Facebook (52 percent) and Twitter (43 percent) users who gather election details from the social networks.

Related

And while politics commanded many conversations, the election did not dominate Reddit. Pew recorded more than 350,000 user comments naming a presidential candidate, which amounted to less than 1 percent of all comments during that time—more than 165 million.

About the Author

Stephanie began as a PCMag reporter in May 2012. She moved to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She interned at Baltimore magazine and graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in the town of Indiana, in the state of Pennsylvania) w... See Full Bio

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.